LAVINIA ZAINEA

Books and How to Enjoy Them


      When I was ten, I was in the habit of reading only at night. There was something comforting about sitting in a poorly lit room, not wishing to be discovered by my parents who had long since gone to bed, and listening to the upstairs’ neighbour’s television set that played on until early morning. It was better in the winter, because I could sit under the covers, and the books somehow smelled like the hot coffee that I was not yelled allowed to drink. This was largely due to the fact that I kept whichever book I was reading at the time in the kitchen, where I did my homework, under a pile of notebooks, lest my parents should see that I was actually reading Dumas instead of doing math exercises.
      At 20, I read in the subway. Or in the park. Or in between lectures. I have even perfected crossing the street while reading a book. I read in the mornings, late afternoons, dawn, while drink coffee, tea or sparkling water. The only thing I haven’t mastered yet is the art of sustaining a conversation while reading a book. Not for lack of trying of course, because during my university years I noticed that almost all my colleagues carried a book with them. It was understandable, since we had a long bibliography every semester. Everybody read something different, though, depending on the degree of their need for escapism or integration, regardless of the curriculum. Some had a specific author whose books they carried around in their bags for four years, and read on their knees during classes, or while eating biscuits during the breaks.
     A friend once told me, when we were in high school and being a pseudo-intellectual was the fashion, that you are what you read. I didn’t pay much attention at the time, I nodded in approval and only gave it a second thought later when I realized one of my colleagues only had Dickens with her, an author she claimed she disliked. When I asked her about it, she seemed puzzled and answered that her like or dislike for the author did not fit into the equation, she simply wanted to read his books, it was a voluntary tour de force, she considered it as a supreme achievement, being able to say that she had read Dickens, and she dedicated herself to it, despite the fact that, as she herself sustained, could not understand him at all, nor did she feel anything while reading his novels. It was a mechanical act, something that she could not be bothered to spend her time with at other times except in between lectures. I found it rather disturbing then to think that she might be defined as “a person who reads Dickens”, or that she wanted to be regarded as such. Obviously, she had the same opinion as my friend from high school, that one is what one reads, but is the mechanical action enough? I read the paper every couple of days, but I don’t define myself by it. Apparently, books have lost their function of connecting one to oneself; they merely became a social emblem, a way to integrate oneself to groups, a somewhat more elitist means of social belonging than watching sitcoms or practicing sports. And while everybody acknowledges their cultural superiority to these forms of entertainment, nobody thinks of equating their enjoyment values. But if one does not find pleasure in discovering a book, one is certainly better off without reading it. It certainly is a trained taste that might develop in a subway but it cannot be born there.